With iOS 26, Apple introduced Adaptive Temperature in the Home app, a new feature that automatically adjusts supported thermostats depending on whether your household is set to home, away, or extended away. This system uses general activity states to make decisions and can also record them in Activity History, which shows when temperature changes were applied. For many users, this helps balance energy efficiency with comfort, while also providing a transparent log of adjustments.
The system does not log precise locations or routes for individuals. Instead, it relies on household activity states and, if enabled, Predict Arrival to anticipate when someone is on the way home. Predict Arrival can use context from apps like Maps, Calendar, and CarPlay to pre-warm or pre-cool, which can create additional activity entries. If you prefer not to keep those logs, you can turn off Activity History for the home or stop sharing location from a specific device.
Owners and residents with editing rights manage Activity History for the entire home. Guests or residents without editing rights cannot switch it off globally, but they can choose to stop their own iPhone from contributing location signals. This distinction keeps control with the home’s administrators while giving individuals an option to opt out of location-based automations if that’s a better fit.
If you want to disable Activity History for the home, you can do it directly in the Home app after a quick tour of the settings. Once disabled, the previous month’s history is removed automatically, which keeps old logs from lingering after you’ve changed your privacy preference. You can re-enable logging at any time if you decide you want the transparency again.
Here is the step-by-step flow to manage Activity History and per-device location:
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Open the Home app on iPhone, iPad, or Mac > More > Home Settings > Activity > toggle Activity History off.
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When Activity History is turned off, last month’s entries are deleted automatically.
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To stop a specific device from sharing location, go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > System Services > turn off Home.
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Turning off Home in System Services also disables other location-based Home automations for that device.
Because Adaptive Temperature only uses household states rather than person-level timelines, it offers useful context without exposing granular movement. The history shows when your home switched between states and when temperature changes followed. For most households, this is enough to understand why a room warmed up before you arrived or why it shifted to an energy-saving mode while you were away.
Consider how Predict Arrival fits your routine before disabling it entirely. If your schedule is predictable, pre-conditioning can meaningfully improve comfort and perceived performance, especially in hotter or colder seasons. If your routine varies, you may prefer to keep Predict Arrival on while turning Activity History off, preserving comfort without keeping a longer trail of state changes.
If you rely heavily on presence-based automations in Home, remember that per-device location controls are blunt tools. Turning off Home in System Services prevents your iPhone from contributing to occupancy-based scenes, which might affect more than just Adaptive Temperature. Review other automations that depend on presence before you make a change so lights, locks, or garage shortcuts do not behave unexpectedly.
To round things out for readers new to Home, it’s useful to note that thermostat support varies by accessory maker and firmware. If a thermostat exposes the necessary Home capabilities, Adaptive Temperature can manage it alongside your scenes, schedules, and manual overrides in the Home app. For deeper setup help, pair this guide with your thermostat vendor’s instructions and your existing Home scenes.
If you are optimizing an energy-saving setup, create scenes that align with state changes so Activity History tells a complete story. A simple “Goodbye” scene that locks doors and arms accessories when the home flips to away pairs nicely with Adaptive Temperature’s energy-saving mode. When you return, a “Welcome Home” scene can restore comfort lighting as the thermostat ramps to your preferred temperature.
